I’m so glad I’m still alive at 84, for I’m a good example of someone who has learned so much in the past decade. Watching the coverage of the Women’s March on Washington, Saturday, January 21, the day after watching the inauguration of an unqualified president has moved me beyond understanding. Both my daughters traveled from other states—one in Colorado and the other, New Jersey—to attend that DC march, and my colleague Kathryn attended a “sister march” closer to her home in Maine, one of hundreds across the country and around the globe. A reported five million women, men and children of all ethnicities, religions, classes, and ages around the world, along with with these three women beloved to me, marched for the idea of a world where the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness form the standard whereby all government decisions are made.

I don’t know if I would have understood it a decade ago, but today, I understand that they marched for a world where women are in control of their own bodies and life choices, just as men expect to be; where indigenous peoples’ rights are understood as the sacred covenant that ultimately protects the planet from harm, that protects the land and water and air for every living thing for generations to come; where Black lives matter as much as white lives; where no one’s compulsion to be superior to others—and I don’t mean excellence, I mean white, male, Christian, American, even human supremacy—can get a foothold of power in any sector of society; where no religion rules over believer and nonbeliever alike; where virtue and integrity are the vehicles through which we commit to the wellbeing of all; and sexuality and gender are free by consent and expression. They marched, in other words, in opposition to the wholesale woman-abusing, immigrant-hating, planet-exploiting, racist, and homophobic policies of the man who was inaugurated as president the day before. And they marched with a great love in their hearts and a deep caring for others every bit as much as for their own freedom, safety, and potential. And most certainly, they marched for their country.

This, I have learned is what the women’s movement—also called the feminist movement, the womanist movement, and the women’s liberation movement—has always been about. Even as it has faltered in its expressions over time, leaving too many women behind for expedient political compromises. This time, the diversity was unmistakable. This time, there would be no compromising. This time, they had a word for why these compromises cannot be made: intersectionality. Intersectionality, as I understand it, refers to how the true test of a free country will be found in the intersections between color and class, sex and sexuality, merit and opportunity. In other words, if we are not all free, then none of us is free. If we cannot all flourish, no one’s flourishing is legitimate. Well yes, of course, is all I can say to this movement toward a sustainable wholeness in the world. Yes, of course.

Will today’s politicians get on board with that? Not the ones we have so far. Not most of them anyway. They would have to put aside their political party dictates; they would have to learn to speak from their hearts; they would have to write legislation that the president would sign that responds to more of the people’s needs than they even bother considering today. But our crippled system of government will not have begun to mend itself until our elected politicians begin speaking for all of the people and lead their base to care about their neighbors and not just themselves.

It will of course be impossible for Congress or any president to respond to the needs of all the people without addressing this intersectional vision of the feminist movement. That’s because the United States that it envisions is antithetical to the status quo of politics as usual that has been in place ever since our country was founded, where women, non-white people, non-Christian people, LGBTQ people, disabled people, working class people, and any other group that wasn’t well-heeled, white or male, have been barred from enjoying the rights and privileges that white property owners took for themselves at the time our country was founded.

Even though nearly a century has passed since women got the vote, they continue to have to fight for control over their bodies; living wages; childcare; parental leave; equality in hiring, credit, justice, housing, credibility—everything that would be assumed if they were men. Discrimination against women in all these areas is further exacerbated if the woman is not white, not heterosexual, not educated, or even not good looking by the eye of the authority that beholds her. The problem might be rectified if one variable were added to the equation in any decision-making body. That variable, is empathy, hence compassion. Isn’t that what the women’s movement comes down to? Treating all people as if they were you? Listening to the experience of all people as if you were speaking? Meeting the needs of all people as if everyone was yourself? Isn’t that what e pluribus unum implies as well? Because how can we have one out of many unless the many are heard as if they spoke as one?

But empathy is in short supply in Congress. Particularly among Republicans, but not exclusively. How deeply have Democrats listened to the needs of women of color, for example? But they were starting to get better when Hillary Clinton was a candidate, because women of color spoke to her most strongly, and she listened. Will Democrats maintain that commitment to women, whose wellbeing, as studies have shown all over the world, is the only tide that lifts all boats? That is, when women flourish, families flourish. When women flourish, communities flourish. When men flourish, on the other hand, they do well by themselves. Democrats’ commitment to women going forward is still to be seen.

But why is empathy in such short supply among Republicans? I think it’s because they do not value the concept of other-centeredness at all, and, therefore, they do not develop the ability to imagine what others’ lives are like. As a result, their decision-making process only takes into consideration the possible impact upon themselves and people they recognize as like them. I would go so far as to say that many of the disagreements between the two political parties arise out of the inability and/or unwillingness of Republicans to interject compassion into the political decision equation. Obviously, if a Republican would be willing to empathize with another person’s plight, putting him or herself in the shoes of one who is struggling, surely that Republican would realize it is in his power as an elected official to alleviate that person’s hardship, as he has voted to alleviate the hardships of those like himself: businessmen, say, or stockholders, defense contractors, pipeline builders. Aren’t Republicans always throwing corporations their welfare in the form of both contracts and legislation? Obviously, if love—and that’s all empathy and compassion are—is in evidence, it will not be expressed as a refusal to help. And they do love their corporations. But they do not love the American people. Not all of them, anyway. Not women of color surely.

Right now, Republicans cannot fathom spending enough money on healthcare to cover all Americans, particularly women, and are resolute instead on repealing the current national program, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. And they clearly have no interest in providing even a fraction of the free healthcare they enjoy for themselves in Congress. And yet, just last week, they pledged to spend even more money for that Trump-promised wall dividing our southern border from Mexico. The one Mexico was going to pay for, according to candidate Trump. If that isn’t chock full of a the opposite of empathy, I don’t know what is. There is certainly no love for the American people in making that a spending priority and certainly no love for our neighbor Mexico. It is a love for hate and cruelty, if anything. It is a love for profit at the expense of people. While we have, in the last few decades, become a country more supportive of the wealth of a few than in “promoting the general welfare,” as the founding vision of this country states, this kind of selfish withholding and barrier-building is frankly un-American.

We should expect much better from our elected representatives. But our expectations have been low for Mitch McConnell and every GOP House leader before and including Paul Ryan, who shared that infamous vow to obstruct everything President Obama tried to do for the American people on the day of his inauguration eight years ago, and made pretty good on it. And yet they are aghast at the potential for Democrats to return the favor, especially since President Trump does not plan to do anything for the American people but only for the multinational corporation. If his supporters haven’t picked up on that yet, they must still be living in Alt Reality. I hear it’s a beautiful bubble. But they should be careful—once they’ve sucked all the air out of that thing, it will be awfully hard for anyone to breathe.

But join us. Women weren’t just marching for themselves and they’re not marching by themselves either; this time, men and children are with them in huge numbers. This most diverse, most inclusive, most empathetic movement ever is marching for the very planet. Along with scientists, as it happens, who have just announced their own march on Earth Day, April 22, 2017. It’s not a partisan thing, you see. Climate collapse will harm us all, whether the facts you honor are real or “alternative.” There will be no spinning mass extinction. Without love, we’re all going down.